


shy of midnight

by anticyclone



Category: Original Work
Genre: Chocolate Box Treat, Cursed to hear through lies, Curses, Disguise, F/F, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: "My pleasure," Gavin said. The words pulsed noiselessly in her ears. Half-truth. Half-lie.Laurel extended her hand. "It's traditional for the Heir to open festivities," she told him. "It would be doubly lucky for two to do it." Half-lie. Half-truth.





	shy of midnight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).



_[ A few moments shy of midnight ]_

 

In the dark, Laurel's eyes were black from edge to edge. The sky overhead was closed above them. Inside, the curtains were drawn against the cold. Only slivers of yellow light seeped through. None onto this curve of the balcony. None onto their faces.

Laurel's dress shimmered pale against her skin. Silver wire held pearls against her shoulders. Her hair was a shadowed cloud around her face. The paint on her mouth shone dark and when she parted her lips, Ila felt herself drawn in, inevitable, like pebbles thrown into the sea.

"I know you," Laurel said.

"No," Ila answered, which for some reason made Laurel smile.

"We've spoken before," Laurel tried, her hands making small circle motions in front of her. Like she was trying to physically pull the truth out of the air. Ila had her back to the wall and didn't know why she couldn't make her feet carry her back inside. "You - you know me _well._ "

"Princess," Ila said. "I - I think you have a different understanding of the situation than I. We have never met before."

"I know your eyes."

Ila startled, jerking her head back. "You can't remember that," she blurted.

Laurel's hands came together. She took a step forward. There was nowhere for Ila to move away. "You came here for me?" she asked, tentatively.

Ila shook her head. Her short-cropped hair - truly her hair, which otherwise might have given the illusion away - brushed her ears. She glanced at the door that had shut behind them a minute ago. It had been unbearably stupid to allow herself to be led out here. It had been shockingly risky. Any moment, her mother would be here to break them apart and lead Ila back inside to be Gavin again.

"We should return to the ball," Ila said. "My mother-"

"You came here for your mother?"

"No, I came here-"

"You came here for Gavin?"

Ila clamped her jaw shut. She needed to stop answering these questions. She hadn't thought Princess Laurel had magic, not like her mother. Not that this was anything like the magic Queen Rosalind had shown Ila before. It wasn't even like Gavin's. Her family's magic was brutal and blasting and obvious. It didn't ask - It _took._

"You came here to _be_ Gavin," Laurel murmured, to herself. "You came here to _be_ Gavin because - Because Gavin couldn't come. But he's already taken everything he wanted from us. So…"

"Please, stop," Ila whispered. "La, please _stop._ "

Laurel stared at her with wide eyes and Ila wanted to sink to the ground. No. No - She hadn't - She'd already - She couldn't even go _one night_ without ruining things, without giving herself away, she'd called Laurel _La_ and now -

"You're _Terese,"_ Laurel gasped. Ila bit her lip, and Laurel's face creased. "No, that sounds like only half of it… You were Terese, but that's not your name…"

"It doesn't matter. I have to _be_ Gavin. La, I can't explain now. You have to understand."

"You love me," Laurel said.

"I _can't,_ " Ila pleaded, her brother's circlet on her head, his ring on her hand, his shield across her chest.

It was as if she hadn't spoken: Laurel cried out and flung herself forward. Her bare arms wrapped tightly around Ila's shoulders. Her lips connected with Ila's own and Ila shattered. One strong blow to her center and she was gone, falling, kissing Laurel back and ready to cast aside her name, the ring, the circlet, her _brother,_ if that was what it took to stay here.

 

***

 

_[ A fashionable hour past sundown ]_

 

"Presenting Her Majesty, Queen Rosalind of Ars, Architect of the Gardens of Ro, Oracle of She Without a Name, Keeper of the Line of Ars."

_Truth, truth, lie, truth._

"Presenting His Royal Highness, Prince Gavin of Ars, Victor of the Fields of Ro, Heir of Ars."

_Lie, lie, lie, lie._

Laurel turned her head toward the grand staircase on the far side of the room. Descending were their royal selves, in the slate grays and stark whites appropriate to the leaders of the Siege of Ro. She had never met them. Rosalind rarely left her perch at the top of Ars and while Gavin had accepted her family's surrender, the capitulation that had ceded their Fields and their name, Laurel hadn't been there.

Laurel had been at the bottom of a well while her kingdom had burned. When she'd crawled out it had been with battered hands, cursed ears, and onto earth with no name.

Tonight her parents renamed Ro. Laurel would have said that Queen Rosalind and Prince Gavin were there to pour salt over the wound. Laurel tested it out in her mouth: _They are here to hurt me. Again._

It was silent. It still rung in her ears. _Lie._

She had promised her parents she would not make a scene. Their Fields were Gardens now. Their name was Lae, now. Laurel had a curse on her ears but still carried a diadem on her head. She handed her glass to a servant and started walking.

 

***

 

_[ Shortly before the opening dance ]_

 

Ila wore her brother's circlet on her head, his ring on her hand, and his shield across her chest. The metal was slightly too wide even with the careful layers of padding underneath her shirt. Ila wore her brother's name and her mother's magic.

Her mother neatly descended the stairs of the kingdom they had failed to kill and smiled at its subjects like this had been the plan all along. Ila kept her shoulders back, her eyes downcast. It was one thing to lie with a name and magic. It was another to lie with your eyes. This was the second time she had come here under an assumed name, which would have been forgotten along with Ro, but people might remember her eyes.

It was hard to live and work in a place for four years without someone remembering your eyes.

"It's early yet," Rosalind said, smiling at a spot just above Ila's eyes. Gavin was taller than her. "Don't tell me you've spent all your words already, dear."

"Of course not." These _were_ Gavin's boots. They were born twelve minutes apart and had the same size feet. She had walked in his shoes before. The last time these boots had been in Ro-no-longer-Ro, Gavin had been seeding fire in their Fields. Now they clicked on the marble while she helped her mother cross the room.

"Excellent." Rosalind settled into an empty golden chair. "Because you'll need to use them wisely."

Ila turned to see what she was looking at.

She wished she could turn and run, instead.

 

***

 

_[ The opening dance, of course ]_

 

"Well met," Laurel said.

Prince Gavin looked at her with eyes that were not his. _Truth._ They were green. Laurel had never met him, but she had seen his likeness. It had been installed in several places along the old borders of their Fields, it accompanied the sculpture of Queen Rosalind that sat at the center of the new Gardens. Laurel had been in the Gardens before, when Ars and her parents had negotiated the renaming. She had been there at night, in the dark, digging for something to take the magic off her ears.

But whatever unnatural things Queen Rosalind had planted in her garden, a cure hadn't been among them.

"My pleasure," Gavin said. The words pulsed noiselessly in her ears. _Half-truth. Half-lie._

Laurel extended her hand. "It's traditional for the Heir to open festivities," she told him. "It would be doubly lucky for two to do it." _Half-lie. Half-truth._ It would be luckier for it to be an Heir who hadn't taken the kingdom's name.

Gavin smiled at her, but his hand trembled slightly before cupping hers.

She walked them backward onto the floor. The crowd parted to make space for them. The musicians began to pluck out new notes, high and fortuitous. Laurel looked into Gavin's green eyes and thought, _I've seen these before._

Her ears chimed back, _Truth._

"This isn't your first time in the palace?" she asked, lightly, a hand on Gavin's shoulders.

He had one of his on the small of her back, the other clasped with her own. Harps kept them slow through their first steps. "It is," he said. _Lie._ He was looking at everything but her eyes. His eyes strayed to the jewelry across the swell of her chest and quickly darted away. Hmm. "It's - lovely. The libraries… I've heard well of the libraries." _Truth._

"Do you often work with books?"

"Oh … No." _Lie._

"I suppose not." Laurel made herself smile. The hand holding hers was supposed to have reduced her treasured Fields to ash, surprisingly fertile for magical gardens. But it trembled again when the music picked up. "I could show them to you, anyway, if you'd like to see."

Gavin let her lead them into a curve while bells rang on the stage. "I would … I think we might be missed, if we leave," he said. _Truth._

It wouldn't be much longer before other people joined them. "Do you think it would make people talk?"

He flushed red. His eyes widened.

Oh.

Laurel had seen that expression before. Her hand tightened on his, and she stared back. Their shoes clicked on the floor underneath them and her mind raced, trying to get as far as her heart had gotten. She had seen that look on someone's face. Not Gavin's. But this was not Gavin, and so…

"Would you like to make people talk?" she asked, softly, still not quite there, still not quite sure.

Gavin swallowed.

 

***

 

_[ Several significant moments past midnight ]_

 

"My mother sent me ahead to … To study Ro. To send back word, ahead of the army." Ila knew her voice was dull. She had practiced this before, in a mirror in worker's quarters in this palace. She hadn't been brave enough to say it when it would have counted.

"So she would know what would kill our Fields, without killing the land for her Gardens."

Ila reluctantly looked up at Laurel. There was an old, worn hurt on her face. Ila exhaled. "Yes."

"Did you help her curse me?"

"What?"

Laurel shut her eyes briefly, letting her head touch the wall. Her shoulders sagged with visible relief. "All right," she whispered. Ila had spent years listening to Laurel talk. She knew when she didn't expect an answer.

"I don't understand. What do you mean? You're - you're cursed?"

"My ears tell me when people are lying."

Ila stared, then folded her hands over her face. "Oh," she mumbled. She breathed like that for a moment before her mouth would cooperate with her again. "Do you… Do you know how to break it?"

"That wasn't included in the note."

"Note?"

"I vanished the night before the invasion. My parents received a note that I would be returned when the fires were smoldering. They didn't know what that meant until morning, of course, but it took me nearly three days to climb out of the well I woke up in and when I did my ears could hear lies."

Ila pulled her hands down from her face and curled her fingers into fists. "Gavin disappeared last night."

For once, Laurel looked like she didn't know what to say.

"We received a note. That he would be returned in - in three days. When the rain had stopped."

They both looked up at the sky: Dark, closed, cold. Those clouds could hold snow. It was late in the season for rain in Lae-no-longer-Ro.

It was just the right season for rain in Ars.

"There are scrying mirrors in the library. Remember?" Laurel asked, still watching the sky.

"People _will_ talk if we don't return."

"People will be talking anyway."

Laurel reached out and grasped her hand. Ila uncurled her fist to tangle their fingers together. When Laurel looked at her, Ila felt like she was looking back with her own face, even though her mother's magic was still tight against her skin.

She'd said _I can't,_ and Laurel, whose ears were cursed to hear lies, had kissed her.

They didn't go back to the ball.

By the time people began to talk, they were gone completely. But they had left the mirror open: baffling to Laurel's parents and painfully clear to Ila's mother, who vanished herself in a flash and reappeared in the mirror's vision. Laurel's parents didn't know what they were looking at, but they could see well enough. The rain kept falling and Rosalind's magic was useless against it.

Ro had burned, and Ars was flooding.

Gavin would find his way back. Something about him would be changed. He would have to deal with it on his own.

Ila and Laurel had an earth witch to find.


End file.
